Swissclear Global, a Singapore-based service provider recently announced the launch of its air-time recharge offering in some African countries, namely Egypt, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tunisia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. With this launch, this makes the service now available in 70 countries, across 200 mobile operators, 3 billion people.
The service is simple and easy to use. Customers can log on to www.swissclearglobal.com and simply type the recipient’s phone number, pick a payment method and complete the transaction. Top-up is almost instant! For convenience, a wide variety of denominations are offered, ranging from US$5 to US$50. Users can recharge their own mobile or send airtime to loved ones from the convenience of their home or a nearby retail outlet.
“Between 70 to 90 percent of mobile subscriptions in emerging markets are prepaid. In a time where more people are traveling or moving away from home, there is a greater need to stay connected. Swissclear Global offers travelers and overseas workers the ability to communicate with family and friends wherever they are, with no service charges added on, making lower denomination transactions affordable,” says Sandy Agarwal, Founder & CEO of Swissclear Global.
Headquartered in Singapore, Swissclear Global has a global customer base. “The platform gives consumers in the United States the same ability to transfer airtime to Mexico or Brazil, as a customer in Singapore who would like to gift airtime to India,” said Agarwal. “We are very proud to have established our Company in Singapore where we have a ready local customer base and environment that will allow us to compete globally.”
In emerging markets alone, sales for prepaid air-time crossed US$460 billion in 2011. Swissclear Global has extended its strategy to address the gap in markets where cash is used for the majority of transactions. It has created an extensive network of agents allowing consumers to walk into a corner-store, and pay cash to recharge their loved ones’ accounts in real-time. In Singapore, Swissclear Global has tied up with AXS and Nets, creating a vast network of kiosk terminals. Plans for other markets such as India, the Middle East and the United States are in the pipeline.
“The benefits of the service to customers are savings on service fees, greater convenience and fast transaction times,” said Agarwal. “Consumers in emerging economies should have access to the same levels of service as more developed markets.”
“Customer security is of paramount importance to us at Swissclear,” emphasized Agarwal. “We needed a robust solution that could detect fraud quickly, help us make confident decisions promptly, and increase process efficiency without impacting customers’ experience. CyberSource Decision Manager empowers us with access to world‘s largest fraud detection radar, bringing insight from over 60 billion global transactions processed annually, as well as advanced online fraud detection technologies.”
